Monday, July 16, 2012

Caught up with former Charlotte Christian High and Davidson All-American Stephen Curry this morning.

He's coming off his second ankle surgery in as many years and looks to be on the road to recovery. He was moving well with no brace and no limp.

I caught up to Curry at Accelerate Basketball, a training facility in Fort Mill, S.C., just across the state line and just past Ballantyne Country Club. The facility caters to young kids all the way to NBA players. As I walked in, Curry was grimacing doing extra slow push ups with a 45-pound round weight on his back (later it was a 60). After a grueling 90-minute workout, Curry talked to me about his new baby that's due any day, his NBA All-Star dreams and his brother, Seth's, future at Duke. You can read it here.

The thing I also saw was how hard Curry is working to get ready for the season and return from his injuries.

He comes to Accelerate five or six times per week, two times per day, in addition to working with a physical therapist on his lower legs. The workouts at Accelerate are grueling, with strength work juxtaposed with basketball skill work. For example, Curry dribbles a six pound ball for long stretches, does weighted pull ups from a plank position, then more pushups.

Then he tries to shoot.

It's all work and all sweat. He's been working with Accelerate owner Brandon Payne since the end of May.

"He's made unbelievable progress," said Payne, whose clients include 75 area youth players plus collegians like Tennessee's Cierra Burdick, South Carolina's Tiffany Mitchell and the NBA's Antawn Jamsion and Anthony Morrow. "Stephen has gone from shooting where he's just able to catch and shoot to now making a few small moves and he's getting back on the court as well.

"He's learned a lot from last year and he's really taking a professional patient approach with his workouts and his rehab and he knows more than anyone we've ever worked with how to listen and react to his body. I think he'll be in a good position when he gets back to (NBA training) camp and he'll be ready to roll."

Curry's youth basketball camp runs Sunday through Tuesday at his alma mater Charlotte Christian. He promises to be on site with campers all day and engage them with film sessions, where they will study some of Curry's clips that were put together by Golden State staffers.

"It's gonna be fun," Curry said. "We'll bring some of the workouts I do on a day-to-day basis (at Accelerate) in the summer and let the campers experience that. We'll watch film that some of my film guys at Golden State put together and I think that kids from 7th to 12th grade can learn and take notes from it. I'll be there on court, doing some of the drills and be in the film sessions, too. I'm not far removed from the age when I was going to those camps and I know how much better I got and how important it was, so I'm trying to offer some of those experiences every year, so hopefully someone else can get better, too."